NASA Finds a Large Amount of Water in an Exoplanet's Atmosphere

NASA Finds a Large Amount of Water in an Exoplanet's Atmosphere: Scientists used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find water 'fingerprints' in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away.

Image of an erupting volcanic plume on Jupiter's moon Io

New Horizons took this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 15:15 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, nearly 10 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The image is centered at Io coordinates 5 degrees south, 92 degrees west, and the spacecraft was 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Io. Io's diameter is 3,640 kilometers (2,262 miles).

Io's dayside was deliberately overexposed in this image to bring out details on the nightside and in any volcanic plumes that might be present. Io cooperated by producing an enormous plume, 330 kilometers (200 miles) high, from the volcano Tvashtar. Near Io's north pole, Tvashtar was active throughout New Horizons' Jupiter encounter.

In this image, volcanic debris from the plume, illuminated by the setting sun, rains down onto Io's nightside. Hot, glowing lava at the source of the plume is the bright point of light on the sunlit side of the terminator (the line separating day and night). Elsewhere along the terminator, mountains catch the setting sun. The nightside of Io is lit up by light reflected from Jupiter.

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09360

Time-lapse Sequence of Jupiter's South Pole

Time-lapse Sequence of Jupiter's South Pole: This series of images from NASA's Juno spacecraft tkaen on Feb. 7, 2018 captures cloud patterns near Jupiter's south pole, looking up towards the planet's equator.

Visions of Our Solar System (Natural History Museum, early 2016. Sunday Times Magazine)

Just a couple of pictures which struck me as quite beautiful, for the exhibition earlier in the year.

George Mueller Obituary (The Guardian)

One of the lesser known characters in the Apollo story - but still found his obituary interesting.

Comet 67P (The Guardian)

Catching up on some old stuff which I had saved to post on the blog.


Loved this picture, from an aesthetic and scientific point of view.  In addition, text described well the picture to a non-science audience.

Link to ESA Missions list

http://www.esa.int/ESA/Our_Missions